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The stinging nettles wounded and blistered her hands, but she continued knitting. The radio kept humming in low volume. The lone tube light flickered. A spider skittered on the fake Mona Lisa affixed to the white-washed wall. The girls sitting away from her, the ones who she never had talked to, gossiped about the wolves they had sometimes fantasized about. Other than that, the hall of the Knitting and Sewing Centre was humdrum. She kept knitting.
The pedals of the sewing machines droned in unison. The radio ran out of battery. The aroma of chai from the neighboring shop rose and rose, wafting through the air, mingled with relentless chattering from the filthy day laborers. This continued until it was night. She kept knitting.
Under the cover of darkness, like the other days, her eleven brothers came to the chai shop. They discussed heists: ones they had already accomplished and those that they planned to carry out. An enormous wall separated her from them, and though she could not see them, her ears were perked up to catch every voice, to keep a tab on every phrase. She kept knitting.
The girls began leaving. The sewing machines began to idle. Someone switched the light off. A faint beam from the street lamp entered the room filtered through the ventilator, as though a fairy godmother. She kept knitting.
Now there was shuffling, indicating her brothers sat around on the charpoys in the chai shop, even bickering about which spot which brother should occupy. Soon, as usual, they were keen on starting a fight with the other customers. Today it was about who’d be the next king. Names flew around, the king’s cousins and sons-in-law were discussed, though neither the laborers nor her brothers had any stake in the matter. She abhorred their divertissement, the way they picked up fights. What a stupid thing to do. Minutes passed, she could hear raised voices now, a fist landing on another. She wished to shout out to stop the fight, but speak she could not, or else she’d be killed as would be her brothers outside. After a while, they left, but not before standing on their toes and peeping above the wall to see if she was knitting still. Oblivious to their own past, they thought it was funny that the girl should keep knitting every night, well into the wee hours. She saw them see her. She kept knitting.
Her eyes began to water. Blood oozed from her fingers, but she remained strong. The man who ran the Knitting Center had a soft corner for her. He came in to check on her—she had been knitting well past closing time and he didn’t like that she worked so hard. He had never asked, never demanded to know whom she was knitting these shirts for. Instead, he brought her plasters and balms, and left without requesting conversation. Today too, he bandaged her bleeding fingers and convinced her to leave her chair and go take a nap.
In bed, she thought of the man again. Yesterday, she had ran out of nettles and when she went past the graveyard on her way to collect more, the spirits had pounced on her. Good that unknown to her, the man had been following her a few steps behind. When she stood frozen in horror, he had hugged her close and wiped her tears.
Last thing before dropping off to sleep, she imagined good times ahead. She hoped he’d propose one day, and then, maybe then, with her job done, she’d marry him and live in his modest quarters. The shirts she’d been knitting will reform her brothers to mend their ways, and maybe that their stepmother is no more and they’ll inherit their father’s wealth one day.
The next morning, she learnt that someone had tipped off the man running the Sewing and Knitting Center not to allow her in, because they believed she was a witch—someone had noticed her ambling by the graveyard, collecting nettles. They said: She never speaks, but she always hears, and that’s how she is conspiring against us. She knew the girls she never spoke to, had complained against her: She’s always eavesdropping on our conversations.
The man seemed convinced—he had done his best to make her open up, it was now not up to him to save her because it had become the talk of their small town.
An agitated mob began to gather around the entrance to the Center. Their enraged voices buzzed in the air like a honeycomb about to break. The people wondered if she was perhaps even in cahoots with a gang of eleven robbers which had been raiding their premises.
Unable to defend herself by speaking out, she begged the man by falling at his feet. He was sympathetic to her—but what could he do, running a business in the small town where the people didn’t want to see her anymore.
She began to be dragged when the man turned away and started walking, saying he was sorry he couldn’t do anything, and being dragged on the gravel road, gave her more injuries on her palms. Having mercy, he said he’ll allow her to finish her nettle work. To this, everyone seemed to temporarily agree.
She hurried past him, catching a glimpse of her eleven brothers who mingled with the crowd, jeering at her fate, quite amnesiac that it was for them that she toiled.
The mob began to grow impatient. They started to throw stones, but she continued knitting. One stone hit her forehead and she began bleeding, but she continued to knit. Finally, before fainting in injury and exhaustion, she threw the eleven coats out across the wall. They fell—one on each brother.
The brothers wore the nettle shirts. They felt warm and hollow on their bodies as they trapped heat for natural insulation, and it was easy to comprehend why nettle had been a matter of choice for people before cotton fabrics came, or why nettle fiber had been used to make uniforms for Napolean’s soldiers.
Not speaking while knitting those eleven nettle shirts, their sister had finally succeeded in breaking the curse that had befallen them. The curse broken, her brothers immediately recognized their long-lost sister.
She lay on the gravel, each hand clutching a stinging nettle, her knuckles with deep gashes, and her forehead dripping blood.
Seeing her in that state, her eldest brother gently eased her to rest her head on his lap, while the second brother ran to fetch water to sprinkle on her face.
The crowd stopped in their tracks, dumbfounded by the sudden turn of events. The brothers three, four and five fell at the feet of the man who ran the Knitting Center. They realized he had provided shelter and protected their sister during their long exile, and how he had bandaged her wounded fingers and cared for her. They wanted to thank him for all he had done.
Brothers six, seven and eight, went to get a doctor for their sister, and brothers nine, ten and eleven kneeled down on the gravel. Hands clasped in forgiveness, they faced the crowd and offered to explain. They had a long story to tell.
In their account, they recalled the evil stepmom who had abandoned the young siblings in a railway carriage many years ago in the hope of starting a new family with their father, and how in her wrath, she had cursed them to grow up into evil ways. And how their sister, because she was strong and kind, the curse had no effect on her, and she had begun to knit the stinging nettle shirts in the hope that the curse shall be broken. And how the brothers wished to mend their ways, how they repented their acts of stealing and robbery. And how grateful they were to their beloved sister.
The Knitting Center man began to sob rather uncontrollably. He confessed his love for their sister; and that he’d sooner have proposed to her if she let him. They all waited, the crowd now on their side, for the girl to regain consciousness and health.
They sprinkled water on her face, and after many tense-filled moments, she finally opened her eyes, to collective sighs of relief and shouts of joy.
It’s a miracle, they shouted.
The man held her hand so she could sit up, and then he too kneeled beside her and held her face in both palms, and kissed her.
Weeks later, they were married, attended by the whole of the small town’s dwellers.
The brothers traveled back to their hometown to find that their stepmom had indeed died, and that their father was full of remorse. They inherited the father’s wealth, half of which they gladly proportioned among themselves and half was sent to their sister.
They say, when the sister had kids, their voices were just like her brothers.
Mandira Pattnaik is an Indian writer published in The Rumpus, IHLR, McNeese Review, Best Microfiction (2024) and BSF (2021 & 2024). Mandira is the author of eight published/forthcoming collections, including "Girls Who Don't Cry" (2023) and "Where We Set Our Easel" (2023). Mandira’s debut novel is under consideration. Visit mandirapattnaik.com